


Family

by thunder_and_stars



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Death, Episode: c05e09 A Crown of Candy: Safe Harbor, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26005081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/thunder_and_stars
Summary: Liam was alone in a crowd of people for a long time before he met the royal family of Candia. It was always hard to lose people, and there was always guilt when you walked away but your friends did not.(I'm so sorry; I cannot write summaries.)
Relationships: Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker & Jet Rocks & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for episode 9.  
> This doesn't follow canon at all really, because I wrote small specifics from memory, but I have many feelings about this show and I needed to write as an outlet for that. I also thought Liam would be struggling more, since he was actually there and watched it happen. It's probably out of character, because I'm not great with that, but I tried my best.  
> I did not mean for this to be so sad, and I am sorry. I blame the eldritch demon that lives in my head.

Liam Wilhelmina had always had relatives, so many siblings and parents, but he never knew what it was like to truly have a _family_. He was happier on his own, most days, in the woods, searching for seeds.

It was easier to find seeds than affection, so he stayed away from all the others, because he was sure they hated him. He supposed he would hate him too, if he had been part of the royal family and then some awkward teenage boy came along, with no tact and the impeccable skill to always say the exact wrong thing.

He stayed out of sight, out of the way, with Preston, and he was sure nobody noticed him. He had always been easy to overlook. His brothers were not kind people, not the type of siblings to truly include him, to make him feel like family. He had always been an outcast.

The princesses were around his age, he knew that, but they were sisters. They would have the same bonds as his brothers, where it was just them, with no room for young Liam.

Jet always talked to him. She wasn’t nice, not exactly, because she wasn’t that kind of person. She was friendly enough, though, and it was more kindness than anyone had showed him in a while. She told him he was cool. He didn’t think she hated him, not entirely.

Ruby included him as well. He wasn’t surprised then, because there was no Jet without Ruby. She was gentler than Jet, kinder, and quieter as well. He appreciated the quiet as much as he appreciated Jet taking some of the attention off him when he said the worst thing.

They taught him twinspeak, their language, a language of love and mischief and trickery, a language of family, of siblings. They were related to him, but more than that, he thought they were becoming his family.

He slowly assured himself that they did not hate him, that they liked him, that they wanted him around. He was happier than he had been in a long time.

And then Preston was gone, and Lapin, and even though Lapin had hated him, he was family too, and he was gone. It seemed like everything was gone, but he still had Jet and Ruby, with their quiet mischief and lilting twinspeak and the way they knew how to be soldiers at times and children at others.

They found the letter, and they were _just teenagers_ , impulsive and stupid, so they went. They were tired of secrets, and they wanted to know what the adults were still keeping from them. Besides, they had been through fights and death, and they thought they could handle anything. Liam went with them, and they were just kids sneaking out of the house at night, just for a little while.

Everything went wrong so fast, and there was nothing he could do. He could see in the dark, and he knew the others couldn’t see him, but they could see the twins, and they were searching for the twins.

He attacked, alerted them to what was wrong, but it wasn’t enough. They were vulnerable, and they couldn’t see in the dark, couldn’t see their attackers, and Liam _hid_.

He watched in horror as they attacked the princesses — his friends, his family. He couldn’t do anything. Jet managed to hit one of them, but it wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough, just like Liam’s attack wasn’t enough.

Just like Liam wasn’t enough.

The attackers still stood, still had weapons in the dark, had sight on their side, and Jet screamed for Ruby to run, to go, to live. She turned invisible, grasping her necklace, her half of the locket they shared, and she ran, grievously injured, searching for help they would never be able to find in time.

Liam pulled Jet into a Rope Trick, hiding in his tiny extra-dimensional pocket in the ceiling. The water from the daggers corroded at her dark licorice flesh, and he tried to cover the wounds, tried to remember any medicine he had once known, but he couldn’t do anything.

She was gone before he could even process the fight, but there wasn’t time to cry for her, just like there hadn’t been time to grieve for Preston and Lapin. He had to move.

The attackers finally left, and he dropped down, wrapped Jet’s body in what he could find, and placed her gently in a cabinet, hidden away. He would come back for her.

And he ran, ran to the castle, fast as he could, and he could hear the shouting as he approached. He found the others, invisible Ruby, still so injured, nothing but soft red footprints that quickly faded from candy grass as she moved, and King Amethar, injured as well, stabbed and thrown from the wall, but he stood, and he grieved, because Ruby knew the second her sister was gone.

For a split second, a tiny, horrible part of him was glad, glad that she had known, glad that she could tell, with her necklace that was half of a whole without Jet’s part, glad that she had told the king by the time he got there.

He couldn’t bear to tell Ruby -- his friend, his family -- that her sister was dead, that he had been able to do nothing to save her. He couldn’t bear to tell Amethar that he had watched her die, that he had hid as they attacked, that he was uninjured and hadn’t even killed the attackers when Jet was dead.

They got to grieve, he told himself. They got to stop and cry over Jet Rocks, sister and daughter to those who cared, friend of others who deserved to stop and grieve.

He wasn’t family. He didn’t deserve to be her family. She was his friend, his family, but he was not part of her family, and he did not get to grieve. He hadn’t done enough.

He wasn’t enough.

He handed Ruby Flickerish, Jet’s sword, the one that had belonged to her aunt, and the other half of the necklace. It was the least he could do to return the items to her.

She told him to take the necklace. She told him Jet would want him to have it. She said it wouldn’t work without another half, as tears spilled slowly down her cheeks. She had lost her other half. Liam hadn’t even known them for that long. He didn’t get to grieve.

“She told me,” he stops, swallowing around the lump in his throat, trying to tell Ruby her sister’s last words. “She said that you did the right thing.”

He didn’t. He didn’t save her. He should have saved her. He should have protected her.

“I’m sorry,” he adds, not voicing all the guilt that roars through his head like a tidal wave, because she did not need to hear it.

He didn’t need comfort then, didn’t deserve it. He needed to apologize, though. He needed her to know he tried, he cared.

“She wanted me to tell you that she loves you.”

Ruby is crying again, and he tries to comfort her, but he can’t, because he never could. He was never good with people. He always left that up to her and Jet.

Jet is gone.

It should have been him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first post, and it means a lot if you comment or give kudos, but thanks for reading even if you don't. It's good to know other people like this reasonably small fandom.


End file.
